Chapter IV: Part 4

Several suggestions have been made with a view to an arrangement that might leave France without reason, or with less reason, for constant meditation on revenge One of them is the neutralization of Alsace-Lorraine on the model of Belgium, while another is the distribution of the territory, so that while Alsace is divided between Baden and Bavaria, Lorraine becomes a part of Prussia A third would divide the provinces between the two nations. An illustration of the yet prevailing feeling is found in the fact that large Alsatian firms invariably use French in their correspondence with Berlin firms, and almost as invariably refer to the "customs-arrangement" with Germany in 1871. They cannot bring themselves to use the word "annexation."

Yet of late years--to anticipate somewhat the course of events--Germany has made two important concessions to Alsace-Lorraine. The first was the abrogation of the so-called "Dictator-Paragraph," which was part of the law for administering the new provinces after the war of 1870. Under the paragraph the Lieutenant-Governor (Oberpresident) of the Reichsland, as the newly incorporated territory is now officially known, was empowered in case of need to take command of the military forces and proclaim a state of siege. When announcing the abrogation of the Paragraph in the Reichstag in 1902, Chancellor von Bülow gave a résumé of the relations of the provinces to the Empire since 1870. He stated that immediately after the war the population were not disposed to incorporation in the Empire, as they thought the new state of things would only be temporary and that France would soon reconquer the provinces. This state of feeling, the Chancellor explained, naturally reacted on the Government, which accordingly laid down the principle that the claims of the provinces to equal political rights with other parts of the Empire could only be recognized step by step, as the Government was satisfied that the population conformed to the new order of things.

The second important concession to the Provinces was made only recently, when the provincial committee was replaced by a popularly elected Diet and the Provinces were granted three seats in the Federal Council. There is a proviso that in case of equality in the Council meetings the votes shall not be allowed to turn the scale in favour of Prussia. The limitation is a concession to the susceptibilities of the other Federal states.

Germany's relations with Great Britain at the time of the accession were unclouded. Mr. Gladstone had been defeated on his Home Rule proposals and Lord Salisbury was back in power. A lull had occurred in British relations with the Transvaal. All nations, including Germany, were beginning to turn their attention to the Orient with a view to the acquisition in Asia of "spheres of influence and spheres of interest," but as yet English and German interests had not come anywhere into conflict.

The Emperor's great internal foe and the object of his special enmity is the Social Democracy, and practically from the day of his accession he has waged war with it. His attitude towards the Socialists requires no long description, since it logically results from his traditional conception of Prussian monarchy and from the revolutionary character of Social Democratic aims. While a young man he paid little or no attention to the movement, and probably regarded it as the "passing phenomenon" he subsequently declared it to be. In 1884 the number of Social Democratic voters was something over half a million, and the number of Social Democratic members returned to the Reichstag 25: in 1890, two years after the accession, the figures were a million and a half and 35 respectively.

The Emperor's denunciation of Social Democrats has always been unmeasured. "A crew undeserving the name of Germans," a "plague that must be extirpated," "traitors," "people without a country and enemies to religion," "foes to the Empire and the country"--such were a few of the expressions he then and during the next few years publicly applied to three millions of his subjects. To-day, it may be added, the number of Social Democrats in Germany is well over four millions.

In 1889, in reply to a deputation of three coal miners' representatives, the Emperor said:

"As regards your demands, I will have them carefully
investigated (a phrase, by the way, not unknown in England)
by my Government, and let you know the result through the
usual official channels. Should, however, offences against
public peace and order occur, should a connexion between
your movement and Social Democratic circles be demonstrated,
I would not be in a position to weigh your wishes with my
royal goodwill, since for me every Social Democrat is the
same thing as a foe to the Empire and the Fatherland.
Accordingly, if I see that Social Democratic tendencies mix
with the movement and lead to unlawful opposition, I will
intervene with all my powers--and they are great."

And a month later:

"That the Radical agitation of the Social Democracy has
turned so many heads and hearts is due to the fact that in
schools, high and low, too little is taught about the cruel
deeds of the French Revolution and too little about the
heroic deeds of the War of Liberation, which was (with the
help of English bayonets, be it parenthetically remarked)
the salvation of the Fatherland."

In 1892, to anticipate by a year or two, in reply to a guest who had observed that Social Democrats were not decreasing in numbers, the Emperor remarked:

"The moment the Social Democracy feels itself in possession
of power it will not hesitate for an instant to attack the
Burghertum (middle classes) very energetically. No
exhibition of general benevolence is of any use against
these people--here only religious feeling, founded on
decided faith, can have any influence."

The Emperor, referring to the murder of a manufacturer in Mulhausen, said: "Another victim to the revolutionary movement kept alive by the Socialists. If only our people would act like men!"

And yet it is obvious, looking at it from the standpoint of to-day, that an admirably organized movement with four million parliamentary voters in an electorate of fourteen millions, with no members in an Imperial Parliament of 397 with representatives, more or less numerous, on almost every municipal board of any importance in the Empire, with the power of disturbing at any moment the relations between capital and labour, upon which the prosperity, security, and comfort of the whole population depend, and in intimate relations with the Socialists of all other countries, cannot be merely ignored or disposed of by scornful and sarcastic speeches, by official anathema, or even by close police supervision. There must be something behind it all which ought to be susceptible of explanation.

Before, however, attempting to conjecture what the something is, it will be advisable, familiar to many though the facts must be, to recapitulate, as briefly as possible, the history of the movement. Old as the story is, it is necessary to have some knowledge of it, for Social Democracy is the great, perhaps the only, domestic political thorn in the Emperor's side.

It is a truism to say that the "social question," the question how best to organize society, is as old as society itself. Great thinkers all down the ages, from Plato to Sir Thomas More, from More to Jean Jacques Rousseau, from Rousseau to Saint Simon, Fourier, Louis Blanc, Lassalle, and Karl Marx, have devoted their attention to it. The French Revolutionists tried to solve it, and the revolutionary movement of 1848 took up the problem in its turn.

German Social Democracy may be referred for its source to the teachings of Louis Blanc, who formed in 1840 a workmen's society in Paris. Blanc held, as the Social Democrats hold, that capitalism was the cause of all social evil, and that the workman was powerless against it. He therefore proposed the establishment of workmen's societies for purposes of production, and the grant of the necessary capital at a low rate of interest by the State. The doctrine was taken up in Germany with fiery enthusiasm by Ferdinand Lassalle, who, in May, 1863, founded the General German Workmen's Society for a "peaceful, lawful agitation" in favour of universal suffrage as a first means to the desired end. Universal suffrage was granted by the North German Confederation in 1867, and in 1873 Lassalle's adherents numbered 60,000.

Meanwhile, Karl Marx and his disciple, Frederic Engels, had been propagating their theories, and in 1848 the former published his famous work on the ideal social state. At first Marx was a partizan of revolutionary methods, but he subsequently recanted this view and proclaimed that the Socialistic aim in future should be the "strengthening of the economic and political power of the workman so that the expropriation of private property could be obtained by legislation." The Marxian doctrine was adopted in Germany by Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel, who, at Eisenach in 1869, founded the Association of Social Democratic Workmen, to which the present German party owes its name. The Eisenach programme declared "the economic dependence of the workmen on the monopolists of the tools of labour the foundation of servitude and social evil," and demanded "the economic emancipation of the working classes." An attempt to get the Lassalle society to join the Eisenacher society on an international basis failed for the time, but the two associations finally coalesced at the Gotha Congress of 1875.

The attempt on the life of William I in 1878 by the anarchist Nobiling had an important effect on the fortunes of the party and the character of its programme. The Socialist Laws were passed and the police began a campaign against the Socialists, of which the mildest features were the dissolution of societies, the searching of houses, the expulsion of suspected persons, and the interdiction of Socialist newspapers and periodicals.

For the next few years the party held its annual congresses in Switzerland or Denmark, but as the Socialist Laws ceased to have effect after three years, and were not then renewed, the party resumed its congresses in Germany. The Congress at Erfurt in 1891 resulted in the issue of a new programme rejecting the Lassalle plan for the establishment of workmen's societies for productive purposes and substituting for it the transfer of all capitalistic private property engaged in the means of production, such as lands, mines, raw material, tools, machinery, and means of transport, to the State. The term used in the programme is "state," not "society," but the State is in fact nothing but the society armed with coercive powers.

Other objects are universal suffrage for both sexes over twenty, electoral reform, two-year parliaments, direct legislation "through the people," some form of parliamentary government, autonomy of the people in Empire, State, Province, and Parish, conscription, national militia instead of standing army, international arbitration, abolition of State religion, free and compulsory education, abolition of capital punishment, free burial, free medical assistance, free legal advice and advocacy, progressive succession duties, inheritance tax, abolition of indirect taxation and customs, parliamentary decisions as to peace and war, and undenominationalism in schools.

Especially for the working classes are intended the following: National and international protective legislation for workmen on the basis of a normal eight hours day, prohibition of child labour under fourteen years, prohibition of night work save rendered necessary by the nature of the work or the welfare of society, superintendence of labour and its relations by a Ministry of Labour, thorough workshop hygiene, equality of status between the agricultural labourer, servant class, and the artisan, right of association, and State insurance, as to which the working class should have an authoritative voice.

The programme contains nothing as to the practical consequences of the provisions it contains, but Herr Bebel, in his book on "Woman and Social Democracy," gives some examples. One is that the working time will be alike for men and women, another that domestic life will be limited to the cohabitation of man and woman, for children are to be brought up by society, and a third that cooking and washing will be the care of central public kitchens and washhouses. Meanwhile, all these years, it may be noted, Herr Bebel and his millions of followers have been living exactly like everybody else.

The student of working-class conditions in Germany is unlikely to think clearly unless he distinguishes between such terms as Social Democracy, Socialism, Trade Unionism, and Labour party. Social Democracy is a species of Socialism. All Social Democrats are Socialists, but not all Socialists Social Democrats. The latter, as an enrolled political party, paying annual subscriptions and looking forward to the future state as conceived by Marx, and now by Bebel, number something under a million; the remaining three millions who voted for Social Democratic candidates at the last general election may have included men who believe in Social Democratic ideals, but the vast majority of them, unless one does grave injustice to their common sense, voted for such candidates owing to dissatisfaction with the policy of the Government and present conditions generally--the high cost of living, the pressure of taxation, the severity of class distinctions, and like grievances, real or imaginary. These people are Socialists in the English or international sense of the word, not Social Democrats strictly speaking; and with these people the Emperor is most angry because he knows they form the element most capable of dangerous expansion.

Again, though the vast majority of German Socialists in the broader sense are Trade Unionists, not all Trade Unionists are Socialists. Trade Unionism--the organization of labour against capital--is represented in Germany by two main bodies; the free or Socialist Unions containing about two million working men, and the "Christian" or loyal "National" Unions, which are anti-Social Democrat and anti-Socialist. These have a membership of about 300,000. The Hirsch-Duncker Unions, with 100,000 members, are Liberal, but also loyal and anti-Socialist. In labour conflicts, naturally, as distinguished from politics, all workmen of the particular branch in conflict work together, whether they are Socialist or not. It need only be added that there is no so-called "Labour party" in the German Parliaments. The Social Democratic party in the Reichstag represents labour interests generally, and promote them much more insistently and successfully than they do the Utopia of their dreams.

But enough has been said to show the comprehensive and revolutionary nature of Social Democratic doctrine. The only other feature that requires mention in connexion with the movement is the desire on the part of a section of the party for a revision of its programme. The party of revision is usually identified with the names of Heinrich von Vollmar, who first suggested it, and Eduard Bernstein, who is in favour of trying to realize that portion of the programme which deals with the social needs of the existing generation, the demands of the present day, and would leave to posterity the attainment of the final goal. The views of the Revisionists differ also from those of the Radicals in respect of two other main questions which divide the party, that of voting budgets and that of going to court. The Revisionists are willing to do both, and the Radicals to do neither. A decisive split in the party is annually looked for, but hitherto, when congress-day came, the Revisionists, for the sake of peace and unity in the party, have refrained from pushing their views to extremes. One might suppose that professors of the tenets of Social Democracy would get into trouble with the police, but they avoid arrest and imprisonment by taking care to avoid attacking property or the family, advocating a republic, or introducing religious questions into their discussions.

In dealing with the growth of Social Democracy in Germany the philosophic historian would doubtless refer to the French Revolution, or go still farther back to the Reformation, as the starting-point of every great change in the views of civilized mankind during the last four and a half centuries; but it is with more recent times these pages are chiefly concerned and consequently with causes now operative. The main specific cause is the change from agriculture to industry, and with it the growth of what is generally spoken of as "industrialism." Industrialism means the assemblage of large masses of intelligent men forming a community of their own, with its special conditions and the wants and wishes arising from them. This is the most fertile field for Socialism, for a new organization of society. In Germany Socialistic ideas kept growing with the increase of industrialism, and came to a head with the attempts by Hödel and Nobiling on the life of the Emperor William. The anti-Socialist laws, passed for a definite period, followed, but they were not renewed; the Emperor and his Government pressed on instead with a great and far-reaching social policy, and Socialism, in the form of Social Democracy, freed from restraint, took a new lease of life.

Another cause of as general, but less ponderable, a nature is the remnant of the feudal spirit and feudal manners which lingers in the attitude of the German governing and official classes towards the rest of the population. The most objectionable features of the feudal system have passed away, the cruel and exclusive rights and privileges which only men in ignorant personal servitude to an all-powerful master could permanently endure; but traces of the system still exist in the official attitude towards the public and in the tone of the official communications issued by the administrative services generally. Attitude and tone may be referred in part to the traditional character of the Prussian monarchy, which regards the people as a flock of sheep, or as a "talent," as the Emperor has called it, entrusted to its care and management by Heaven; but it is also due in part to the systematization of public life--and largely of private life--which at times makes the foreigner inclined to think Germany at once the most Socialistic and at the same time the most tyrannically ruled country in the world. Everything in Germany must be done systematically, and the system must be the result of development. But there is no use in having a system unless it is enforced--otherwise it remains, like Social Democracy, a theory. Compulsion, therefore, is necessary, and the Government provides it through its official machinery and its police. The systematization has enormous public advantages, but it is difficult for the Anglo-Saxon, jealous of his individual right to direct his public life through his own representatives and his private life according to his own judgment, to accommodate himself to a system which seems to him unduly to interfere with both right and judgment.

Perhaps it is the manner in which, under the name of authority, compulsion is exercised by subordinate officialdom and in especial by the police, as much as the compulsion itself, which irritates in Germany. Every profession, business, trade, and occupation, down to that of selling matches and newspapers in the streets, is meticulously regulated; and while there is nothing to object to in this, what strikes the Anglo-Saxon as objectionable is that the regulations are enforced with the manners and in the tone of a drill-sergeant. The official in Germany, he finds, is not the servant of the public. There is a story current in England of a Duke of Norfolk, when Postmaster-General, going into a district post-office and asking for a penny stamp. The clerk was dilatory, and the Duke remonstrated. "Who are you, I should like to know?" asked the clerk impertinently, "that you are laying down the law." "I am the public," replied the Duke simply, at the same time showing the clerk his card. An English Foreign Secretary once told a deputation that the Ministry was "waiting for instructions from their employers--the people." In Germany it is the opposite; the official is the master and the public his dutiful servant. In Germany the official expects marked deference from the public: the post-office clerk is "Mr. Official," the guardian of the law "Mr. Policeman" (with your hat off). The Anglo-Saxon rather expects the deference to be on the other side, and has a sordid subconsciousness that he pays the official for his services. Perhaps the Social Democrat has something of the same feeling.

One of the chief consequences of industrialism in Germany is that the people of the country are migrating to the towns. To the country bumpkin the city is an Eldorado and a lordly pleasure-house. In truth, he is much better off in it than in the stagnant life of the country. In the city he sees comfort on every hand, with possibilities of enjoyment of every kind, and if he does not soon get a share of the good things going he grows discontented and turns Socialist. In the city, too, he learns to think and compare, he perceives the distinction of classes and notices that certain classes have open to them careers from which he is excluded. Then there is the apparently inevitable antagonism between labour and capital, between the employer and employed, which drives the worker to Social Democracy, as offering the prospect of his becoming his own master and enjoying the whole fruits of his labour. He may not know Matthew Arnold's "Sick King in Bokhara," but he would endorse Arnold's lines:--

"And these all, for a lord
Eat not the fruit of their own hands;
Which is the heaviest of all plagues
To that man's mind, who understands."

But whatever its causes, Social Democracy is one of the most curious and anomalous societies extant. In a country which worships order, it calls for absolute disorder. A revolutionary movement, it anxiously avoids revolution. It is a magnificent organization for no apparent practical, direct, or immediate purpose. Proclaiming the protection of the law and enjoying the blessing of efficient government, it yet refuses to vote the budget to pay for them. It supports a large parliamentary party without any clear or consistent parliamentary policy in internal or external affairs, unless to be "agin the Government" is a policy. And lastly, if some of its economic demands are justifiable, and have in several respects been satisfied by modern legislation, its fundamental doctrine, the basis of the entire edifice, is a wild hallucination, sickening to common sense, and completely out of harmony with the progressive economic development of all nations, including its own.

In conclusion, it may be added that the social side of the Social Democracy is perhaps too often unrecognized or ignored by the foreign observer. Life for the poorer classes in Germany is apt to be more monotonous and dull than for the poorer classes of any country which nature has blessed with more fertility, more sunshine, more diversity of hill and dale, and where people are more mutually sociable and accommodating. Social Democracy offers something by way of remedy to this: a field of interest in which the workers can organize and make processions and public demonstrations and can talk and theorize and dispute, and in which the woman can share the interest with the man; or a club, a social club with the largest membership in the world except freemasonry.

We must return, however, to the Emperor. During this period, in December, 1890, he, like every one else with his own ideas on education as well as on art and religion, delivered his views on popular instruction. At this time--he was then thirty--he called together forty-five of the ablest educational experts of the country and addressed them on the subject of high-school education. His Minister of Education, Dr. von Grossler, had drawn up a programme of fourteen points for discussion, and the Emperor added to these a few others he wished to have considered.

German high-school education, be it remarked, is a different thing from English public-school education, and ought rather to be spoken of as German information than as German education. We have seen that the spirit of the German university differs largely from that of the English university, in that it is not concerned with the formation of character or the inculcation of manners. The same may be said of the German gymnasium, or high school, the institution from which the German youth, as a rule, goes to college. No teaching institution, English or German, be it further said on our own account, makes any serious attempt to teach what will prepare youth for intercourse with the extremely complicated world of to-day, to give him, to take but one example, the faintest notion of contract, which, if he possessed it, would save him from many a foolish undertaking and protect him from many a business betrayal, Far from it. All the disagreeable, and many of the painful incidents of his subsequent life, all equally avoidable if knowledge regarding them had been instilled into him in his early years, he must buy with money and suffering and disgust in after-years.

But the Emperor is waiting to be heard. His entire speech need not be quoted, but only its chief contentions. In introducing his remarks he claimed to speak with knowledge as having himself sat on a public-school bench at Cassel.

The Social Democracy being to the Emperor what King Charles's head was to Mr. Dick, it is not surprising to find almost his first statement being to the effect that if boys had been properly taught up to then, there would be no Social Democracy. Up to 1870, he said, the great subject of instruction for youth was the necessity for German unity. Unity had been achieved, the Empire was now founded, and there the matter rested. "Now," said the Emperor, "we must recognize that the school is for the purpose of teaching how the Empire is to be maintained. I see nothing of such teaching, and I ought to know, for I am at the head of the Empire, and all such questions come under my observation. What," he continues,

"is lacking in the education of our youth? The chief fault
is that since 1870 the philologists have sat in the high
schools as _beati possidentes_ and laid chief stress upon
the knowledge to be acquired and not on the formation of
character and the demands of the present time. Emphasis has
been put on the ability to know, not on the ability to
do--the pupil is expected to know, that is the main thing,
and whether what he knows is suitable for the conduct of
life or not is considered a secondary matter. I am told the
school has only to do with the gymnastics of the mind, and
that a young man, well trained in these gymnastics, is
equipped for the needs of life. This is all wrong and can't
go on."

Then the Empire-builder speaks--what is wanted above all is a national basis.

"We must make German the foundation for the gymnasium: we
must produce patriotic young Germans, not young Greeks and
Romans. We must depart from the centuries-old basis, from
the old monastic education of the Middle Ages, when Latin
was the main thing and a tincture of Greek besides. That is
no longer the standard. German must be the standard. The
German exercise must be the pivot on which all things turn.
When in the exit examination (_Abiturientenexamen_) a
student hands in a German essay, one can judge from it what
are the mental acquirements of the young man and decide
whether he is fit for anything or not. Of course people will
object--the Latin exercise is very important, very good for
instructing students in other languages, and so on. Yes,
gentlemen, I have been through the mill. How do we get this
Latin exercise? I have often seen a young man get, say 4-1/2
marks, for his German exercise--'satisfactory,' it was
considered--and 2 for his Latin exercise. The youngster
deserved punishment instead of praise, because it is clear
he did not write his Latin exercise in a proper way; and of
all the Latin exercises we wrote there was not one in a
dozen which was done without cribbing. These exercises were
marked 'good,' but when we wrote an essay on 'Minna von
Barnhelm' (one of Lessing's dramas) we got hardly
'satisfactory.' So I say, away with the Latin exercise, it
only harms us, and robs us of time we might give to German."

The Emperor goes on to recommend the study of the nation's history, geography, and literature ("Der Sage," poetry, he calls it).

"Let us begin at home," he says; "when we have learned
enough at home, we can go to the museums. But above all we
must know our German history. In my time the Grand Elector
was a very foggy personage, the Seven Years' War was quite
outside consideration, and history ended with the close of
the last century, the French Revolution. The War of
Liberation, the most important for the young citizen, was
not taught thoroughly, and I only learned to know it, thank
God, through the very interesting lectures of Dr. Hinzpeter.
This, however, is the _punctum saliens_. Why are our young
men misled? Why do we find so many unclear, confused
world-improvers? Why is our government so cavilled at and
criticized, and so often told to look at foreign nations?
Because the young men do not know how our conditions have
developed, and that the roots of the development lie in the
period of the French Revolution. Consequently, I am
convinced that if they understood the transition period from
the Revolution to the nineteenth century in its fundamental
features, they would have a far better understanding of the
questions of to-day than they now have. At the universities
they can supplement their school knowledge."

The Emperor then turned to other points. It was "absolutely necessary" to reduce the hours of work. When he was at school, he said, all German parents were crying out against the evil, and the Government set on foot an inquiry. He and his brother (Henry) had every morning to hand a memorandum to the head master showing how many hours it had taken them to prepare the lessons for the day. In the Emperor's case it took, "honestly," from 5-1/2 to 7 hours' home study. To this was to be added 6 hours in school and 2 hours for eating meals--"How much of the day," the Emperor asks, "was left? If I," he said, "hadn't been able to ride to and from school I wouldn't have known what the world even looked like." The result of this, he continued, was an

"over-production of educated people, more than the nation
wanted and more than was tolerable for the sufferers
themselves. Hence the class Bismarck called the
abiturienten-proletariat, all the so-called hunger
candidates, especially the Mr. Journalists, who are often
broken-down scholars and a danger to us. This surplus, far
too large as it is, is like an irrigation field that cannot
soak up any more water, and it must be got rid of."

Another matter touched on by the Emperor was a reduction in the amount to be learned, so that more time might be had for the formation of character. This cannot be done now, he remarks, in a class containing thirty youngsters, who have such a huge amount of subjects to master. The teacher, too, the Emperor said, must learn that his work is not over when he has delivered his lecture. "It isn't a matter of knowledge," he concludes "but a matter of educating the young people for the practical affairs of life."

The Emperor lastly dealt with the subject of shortsightedness. "I am looking for soldiers," he said.

"We need a strong and healthy generation, which will also
serve the Fatherland as intellectual leaders and officials.
This mass of shortsightedness is no use, since a man who
can't use his eyes--how can he do anything later?"

and he went on to mention the extraordinary facts that in some of the primary classes of German schools as many as 74 per cent, were shortsighted, and that in his class at Cassel, of the twenty-one pupils, eighteen wore spectacles, while two of them could not see the desk before them without their glasses.

The Englishman in Germany often attributes German shortsightedness to the Gothic character of German print. It is more probable that the long hours of study spent poring over books without fresh-air exercise, judiciously interposed, is responsible for it.

It has been said that every one, like the Emperor, has his own theory of education, but there is one passage in the Emperor's speech with which almost all men will agree--that, namely, in which he urges that knowledge is not the only--perhaps not the chief--thing, but that young people must be educated for the practical affairs of life. Unfortunately, as to how we are successfully to do this, the Emperor is silent; and it may be that there is no certain or exact way. One could, of course--but we are concerned with the Emperor.

The difference of opinion between the Emperor and Bismarck regarding the Emperor's visit to Russia seems to have left no permanent ill-will in the Emperor's mind, for on returning in October, 1889, from visits to Athens, where he attended the wedding of his sister Sophie with the Heir-Apparent of Greece, Prince Constantine (now King Constantine), and Constantinople, where he was allowed to inspect the Sultan's seraglio, he sent a letter to the Chancellor praying God to grant that the latter's "faithful and experienced counsel might for many years assist him in his difficult and responsible office." In January, 1890, however, the question of renewing the Socialist Laws, which would expire shortly, came up for settlement. A council of Ministers, under the Emperor's presidency, was called to decide it. When the council met, Bismarck was greatly surprised by a proposal of the Emperor to issue edicts developing the principles laid down by his grandfather for working-class reform instead of renewing the Socialist Laws. The Reichstag took the Emperor's view and voted against the renewal of the Laws. It only now remained to give effect to the Emperor's edicts. They were considered at a further council of Ministers, at which the Emperor exhorted them to "leave the Social Democracy to me, I can manage them alone." The Ministers agreed, and Bismarck was in a minority of one. This, however, was only the beginning of the end. Bismarck decided to continue in office until he had carried through Parliament a new military Bill, which was to come before it in May or June. Meanwhile fresh matters of controversy between the Emperor and the Chancellor arose regarding the grant of imperial audiences to Ministers other than the Chancellor. Bismarck insisted that the Chancellor alone had the right to be received by the Emperor for the discussion of State affairs.

The quarrel was accentuated by a lively scene which occurred between the Emperor and the Chancellor about this period in connexion with a visit the leader of the Catholic Centre party had paid the Chancellor, and on March 17th the Emperor sent his chief Adjutant, General von Hahnke, to say he awaited the Chancellor's resignation. Bismarck replied that to resign at this juncture would be an act of desertion; the Emperor could dismiss him. At the same time the Chancellor summoned a meeting of Ministers for the afternoon, but while they were discussing the situation a message was brought from the Emperor telling them he did not require their advice in such a matter and that he had made up his mind about the Chancellor. The messenger on the same occasion expressed to Bismarck the Emperor's surprise at not having received a formal resignation. Bismarck's reply was that it would require some days to prepare such a document, as it was the last official statement of a "Minister who had played a meritorious part in the history of Prussia and Germany, and history should know why he had been dismissed." Three days later, on March 20th, an hour or two after the formal resignation reached the palace, the Emperor's letter granting the Chancellor's request for his release, naming him Duke of Lauenburg and announcing the appointment of General von Caprivi as his successor, was put into the old Chancellor's hands.

VI.

THE COURT OF THE EMPEROR

While the ex-Chancellor is bitterly meditating on the unreliability and ingratitude of princes, yet having in his heart, as the records clearly show, the loyal sentiments of a Cardinal Wolsey towards his royal master, even though that master had cast him off, we may be allowed to pause awhile in order to give some account of the Court of which the Emperor now became the centre and pivot.

Human imagination, in its worship of force as the source of ability to achieve the ends of ambition and desire, very early conceived the courts of kings as fairylands of power, wealth, luxury, and magnificence--in a word, of happiness. The same imagination represents the Almighty, whose true nature no one knows, as a monarch in the bright court of heaven, and his great antagonist, Satan, who stands for the king of evil, is enthroned by it amid the shades of hell. The fiction that courts are a species of earthly paradise is still kept up for the entertainment of children; while the adult, whom the annals of all countries has made familiar with a long record of monarchs, bad as well as good, is disposed to regard them as beneficial or otherwise to a country according to the character and conduct of the occupant of the throne, and to believe that they are at least as liable to produce examples of vice and hypocrisy as of virtue and honesty.

The court of the German Emperor in this connexion need not fear comparison with any court described in history. True, courts all over the world have improved wonderfully of recent years. Their monarchs are more enlightened, they are frequented by a very different type of man and woman from the courts of former times, their morale and working are more closely scrutinized and more generally subjected to criticism, and they are occupied with a more public and less selfish order of considerations. The Court of the Emperor is, so far as can be known to a lynx-eyed and not always charitably thinking public, singularly free from the vices and failings the atmosphere of former courts was wont to foster. There is at all times, no doubt, the competition of politicians for influence and power acting and reacting on the Court and its frequenters, but of scandal at the Court of Berlin there has been none that could be fairly said to involve the Emperor or his family. Dame Gossip, of course, busied herself with the Emperor in his youth, but whatever truth she then uttered--and it is probably extremely little--on this head, there is no question that from the day he mounted the throne his Court and that of the Empress has been a model for all institutions of the kind.

The life of courts, the personages who play leading parts in them, their wealth and luxury, and the currents of social, amorous, and political intrigue which are supposed to course through them have in all countries and in all ages strongly appealed to writers, fanciful and serious. Perhaps one-third of the prose and poetic literature of every country deals, directly or indirectly, with the subject, and determines in no small degree the character of its rising generations. The great architects of romance, depicting for us life in high places, and often nobly idealizing it, or working the facts of history into the web of their imaginings and thus pleasantly combining fact with fiction, aim at elevating, not at debasing, the mind of the reader. A second valuable source of information on the topic are the memoirs of those who have set down their observations and recorded experiences made in the courts to which they had access. Among this class, however, are to be found unscrupulous as well as conscientious authors, the former obviously cherishing some personal grievance or as obviously actuated by malice, while the latter are usually moved by an honest desire to tell the world things that are important for it to know, and at the same time, it is not ill-natured to suspect, enhance their own reputation with their contemporaries or with posterity. The multitudinous tribe of anecdote inventors and retailers must also be taken into account. In our own day there is still another source of information, which, agreeably or odiously according to the temperament of the reader, keeps us in touch with courts and what goes on there--the periodical press; while afar off in the future one can imagine the historian bent over his desk, surrounded by books and knee-deep in newspapers, selecting and weighing events, studying characters, developing personalities, and passing what he hopes may be a final judgment on the court and period he is considering.

For a study of the Emperor's life, as it passes in his Court, a large number of works are available, but not many that can be described as authoritative or reliable. Among the latter, however, may be placed Moritz Busch's "Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of His History," three volumes that make Busch almost as interesting to the reader as his subject; Bismarck's own "Gedanke und Erinnerungen," which is chiefly of a political nature; and the "Memorabilia of Prince Chlodwig Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst," who was for several years Statthalter of Alsace-Lorraine and subsequently became Imperial Chancellor in succession to General von Caprivi. These works, with the collections of the Emperor's speeches and the speeches and interviews of Chancellor Prince von Bülow, may be ranked in the category of serious and authentic contributions to the Court history of the period they cover. Then there are several German descriptions of the Court, reliable enough in their way which is a dull one, to those who are not impassioned monarchists or hide-bound bureaucrats. In the category of works by unscrupulous writers that entitled "The Private Lives of William II and His Consort," by a lady-in-waiting to the Empress from 1888 to 1898, easily takes first place. Certainly it gives a lively and often entertaining insight into the domestic life of the palace, but it is so clearly informed by spite that it is impossible to distinguish what is true in it from what is false or misrepresented. Finally, for the closer study of individual events and the impressions they made at the time of their happening, the daily press can be consulted. For the Bismarck period the biography of Hans Blum is of exceptional value.

What may be termed the anecdotic literature of the Court is particularly rich and trivial, and this is only to be expected in a country where the monarchy and its representative are so forcibly and constantly brought home to the people's consciousness. Yet it has its uses, and is referred to, though sparingly, in the present work. "The Emperor as Father of a Family," "The Emperor and His Daughter's Uniform," "The Amiable Grandfather," "The Emperor as Husband," "The Emperor as Card Player," "How the Emperor's Family is Photographed," "What does the Emperor's Kitchen Look Like," "Adieu, Auguste" ("Auguste" is the Empress), "The English Lord and the Emperor's Cigarettes," "When My Wife Makes You a Sandwich," "What the Emperor Reads," "The Emperor's Handwriting," "Can the Emperor Vote?" (the answer is, opinions differ), "Washing Day at the Emperor's," "The Emperor and the Empress at Tennis," "Emperor and Auto," are the sort of matters dealt with. Literature of this kind is beyond question intensely interesting to vast numbers of people, but helps very little towards understanding a singularly complex human being placed in a high and extraordinarily responsible position.

Strictly speaking, there is no Imperial Court in Germany, since the King of Prussia, in accordance with the Imperial Constitution, always succeeds to the imperial throne, and therefore officially the Court is that of the King of Prussia only. The distinction is emphasized by the fact that the Court is independent of the Empire as regards its administration and finance. It is a state within a state, an _imperium in imperio_. In all that pertains to it the Emperor is absolute ruler and his executive is a special Ministry. At the same time it is almost needless to add that the Court of Berlin is practically that of the Empire. It is this character, apart from Prussia's size and importance, that distinguishes it from other courts in Germany and reduces them to comparative insignificance in foreign, though by no means in German, consideration.

The Court of the Empire and Prussia--and the same thing may be said of the various other courts in Germany--engages popular interest and attention to a much larger extent than is the case in England. The fact is almost wholly due to the nature of the monarchy and of its relations to the people. In England a great portion of the popular attention is concentrated on Parliament and the fortunes of its two great political parties. The attention given to the Court and its doings is not of the same general and permanent character, but is intermittent according to the occasion. The Englishman feels deep and abiding popular interest at all times in Parliament, whether in session or not, because it represents the people and is, in fact, and for hundreds of years has been, the Government.

The reverse may fairly be said to be the case in Germany. In Germany popular attention has been from early times concentrated on the monarch, his personality, sayings and doings, since in his hands lay government power and patronage. Monarchy of a more or less absolute character was accepted by the people, not only in Germany but all over the Continent, as the normal and desirable, perhaps the inevitable, state of things; and it is only since the French Revolution that parliaments after the English pattern, that is by two chambers elected by popular vote, yet in many important respects widely differing from it, were demanded by the people or finally established. Up to comparatively recent times the monarch in Prussia was an absolute ruler. Frederick William IV, after the events of 1848, was compelled to grant Prussia a Constitution which explicitly defined the respective rights of the Crown and the people in the sphere of politics; and the Imperial Constitution, drawn up on the formation of the modern Empire, did the same thing as regards the Emperor and the people of the Empire; but neither Constitution altered the nature of the monarchy in the direction of giving governing power to the people. Both secured the people legislative, but not governing power. Government in the Empire and Prussia remains, as of old, an appanage, so to speak, of the Court, and the fact of course tends to concentrate attention on the Court.

It has been said that the Court is a state within a state, an _imperium in imperio_. In this state, within Prussia or within the Empire, it is the same thing for our purpose, there are two main departments, that of the Lord Chamberlain (_Oberstkammeramt_) and that of the Master of the Household (_Ministerium des Königlichen Hauses_). The first deals with all questions of court etiquette, court ceremonial, court mourning, precedence, superintendence of the courts of the Emperor's sons and near relatives, and of all Prussian court offices. The second deals with the personal affairs of the Emperor and his sons, the domestic administration of the palace, the management of the Crown estates and castles, and is the tribunal that decides all Hohenzollern differences and disputes that are not subject to the ordinary legal tribunals. Connected with this Ministry are the Herald's office and the Court Archives office. The chief Court officials include, beside the Lord Chamberlain and the Master of the Household, a Chief Court Marshal. The Master of the Household is also Chief Master of Ceremonies, with a Deputy Master of Ceremonies who is also Introducer of Ambassadors, two Court Marshals, a Captain of the Palace Guards, a Court Chaplain, Court Physician, an Intendant in charge of the royal theatres, a Master of the Horse who has charge of the royal stables, a House Marshal, and a Master of the Kitchen. All these officials are princes (_Fürst_) or counts (_Graf_), with the title Highness (_Durchlaucht_) or Excellency.

Court officials also include the various nobles in charge of the royal palaces, castles, and hunting lodges at Potsdam, Charlottenburg, Breslau, Stettin, Marienburg, Posen, Letzlingen, Hohkönigsberg, Homberg von der Höhe, Springe, Hubertusstock, Rominten, Korfu (the "Achilleion"), Wiesbaden, Koenigsberg, etc., to the number of thirty or more. The Empress has her own Court officials, including a Mistress of the Robes and Ladies of the Bedchamber, also with the title of Excellency, the Ladies being chosen from the most aristocratic families of Germany. The Empress has her own Master of the Household, physician, treasurer, and so on. Similarly with the households of the Crown Prince, other royal princes and the Emperor's near relatives.

Every order the Emperor gives that is not of a purely domestic kind passes through one of his three cabinets--the Civil Cabinet, the Military Cabinet, or the Marine Cabinet. The cost of the first, with its chief, who receives £1,000 a year, and half a dozen subordinate officials on salaries of £200 to £350, is budgeted at about £10,000 a year. The Military Cabinet is a much larger establishment, having several departments and a staff of half a hundred councillors and clerks. The Naval Cabinet, on the other hand, is composed of only three upper officials and five clerks. The Emperor's "civil list" is returned in the Budget as £860,000 roughly. His entire annual revenue does not exceed £1,000,000. Out of this he has to pay the expenses of his married sons' households and make large contributions to public charities. He was left, however, a very considerable sum of money by the Emperor William. The Crown Prince, as such, receives a grant of £20,000 a year, chiefly derived from the royal domain of Oels in Silesia. Like all fathers of large families, the Emperor has been more than once heard to complain that he finds it difficult to make both ends meet.

The Emperor's staff of adjutants are exceptionally useful and important people. At their head is the chief of the Emperor's Military Cabinet. Not less important are the members of the Emperor's Marine Cabinet, consisting of admirals, vice-admirals, and wing-admirals. The personal adjutants divide the day and night service between them, so that there may always be three adjutants at the Emperor's immediate disposal. The adjutant announces Ministers or other visitors to the Emperor, telegraphs to say that His Majesty has an hour or an hour and a half at his disposal at such-and-such a time, or intimates that an audience of half an hour can be given in the train between two given points. They act as living memorandum books, knock at the Emperor's door to announce that it is time for him to go to this or that appointment, remind him that a congratulatory telegram on some one's seventieth birthday or other jubilee has to be sent, or perhaps whispers that Her Majesty the Empress wishes to see him. All the Emperor's correspondence passes through their hands. They accompany the Emperor on his journeys and voyages, and when thus employed are usually invited to his table. The Emperor reads of some new book and tells an adjutant to order it, and the latter does so by communicating with the Civil Cabinet.